...won't ever really change. Tonight I'm in the local Best Buy store, at the slick looking table they have set up for Apple computers. About 50 square feet in a 50,000 sf retail store. This 18 year old high school senior and his Mom are eyeing Apple laptops. They're going to buy one, you can tell. The kid wants a Mac. Some Best Buy mope comes over and lays the same horsesiht I've heard from these guys for 20 years: 'oh, these Macs are good for graphics, you don't want a PC?'. Amazing.

At any rate, the BB sales dude was a zero, he goes off to get the prices, and within five minutes I was able to ascertain the kid's needs, we considered the various MacBooks, and he settled on the new $1300 13" aluminum MacBook. He was very happy. He told the salesman to get him one. I didn't get a commission. Oh well.

It remarkable to me that after 20 years, and after Apple just made a recent agreement to place their new hot products in Best Buy stores, they are still treated this way. That's why Apple started opening stores 6-7 years ago. They should have gone into their own retail points 15+ years ago. At least at the Apple Store, they try to sell you one.

Yeah I see this at uk equivalent of bb stores too (we call it pc world - the scumbags). Once some guy came in and said he wants to buy a macbook. The sales guy insisted he didn't really want a mac and was attemtping to sell one of his high-commision specials so he went away to get a price list or something. In that minute, I told this guy to go ahead and get a mb if that's what he really wanted. By this time the sales dude was back and in front of him I said "and btw there's a huge apple store a few stops away'. The sales guy started cursing me in his native Tongue (at least that's what it sounded like).

And this is why Apple needs more retail stores. The closest Apple Store to us is 35 miles away. That does cost Apple sales. They are getting there, but we may not see one for 10 years. We probably don't have the population density Apple wants. But this story is from a Best Buy adjacent to a major 1 million+ sf regional shopping mall. So I think they could support an Apple location there.

Ooh, didn't even know that! I was just in one of their stores yesterday looking at systems. Guess I'll wait for the clearance to get a new monitor.

There's a local electronics store that sells parts to build your own. I will be getting my next computer either from there or from an online retailer. I refuse to give Best Buy any of my money for being negligent nozzles.

$1300 for the aluminum MacBook is a great price. Even with student discount, its normally $1600 or so.

There is one thing I highly recommend for it though. Buy either an external USB drive for it (portable, or one that has a power adapter), or buy a Time Capsule. Even though Time Machine doesn't encrypt its backups, it is one of the best backup programs around for just enabling and forgetting. I'd recommend the Time Capsule, because it also has 1000baseT hub, wireless AP, NAT gateway, and the ability to plug in a USB hard disk or printer, but they are fairly expensive, and Time Machine is content with an external hard disk.

Correction: Was thinking the 2.4 GHz model for $1300.

Last edited by mlts22; 11-08-08 at 05:37 PM.
Reason: correction in price.

.It remarkable to me that after 20 years, and after Apple just made a recent agreement to place their new hot products in Best Buy stores, they are still treated this way. That's why Apple started opening stores 6-7 years ago. They should have gone into their own retail points 15+ years ago. At least at the Apple Store, they try to sell you one.

The problem is trying to sell a product like a Macintosh at a (semi) budget retailer like Best Buy. 15 years ago Mac wasn't quite the same company they are now. Opening their own stores was part of attempt to distinguish themselves by returning to making their product nearly foolproof and providing the actual expertise to cover it for the fools who extraordinary talent, or the occasional hardware failure.

The societal cliche about the 17 year old kids they hire to staff their stores is that they know everything about computers because they grew up with them. Amusing as it may be to watch a kid show a grown up how to set the clock on their VCR, a willingness to fiddle with things and familiarity with a limited set of programs doesn't make someone an expert.

In reality, few of them really know the ins and outs of computers, and even fewer have a good sense of how to balance what others need against their own biases. Being able to recite the results of a Toms Hardware test on the current crop of video cards isn't the ins and outs, and knowing how to edit movie clips together or install Weatherbug definitely isn't.

Although Mac stores definitely have plenty of younger, tech-oriented but still amatuer kids handling the visible customer service, they actually have professional techs and managers to back them up. Despite my general disdain for Mac's product lock-in philosophy and more overtly, the noisy fanboys, I was actually quite impressed to learn that their "genius" technician position actually requires a reasonable qualified technician.

Of course, that costs money, and is one of several reason Macintosh will not beat out companies like Dell in volume.

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"The internet is a place where absolutely nothing happens. You need to take advantage of that." ~ Strong Bad

The point was not that Apple isn't in a healthy position right now, but that they sell a somewhat of a niche product. Whatever value Apple may add, most people aren't going to spend $1500 for a computer with equivalent specs to one they can get for just over half that from elsewhere.

By the way, where'd they get all that money? Have they been holding out on their shareholders or did they just do a big stock sale?

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"The internet is a place where absolutely nothing happens. You need to take advantage of that." ~ Strong Bad

The point was not that Apple isn't in a healthy position right now, but that they sell a somewhat of a niche product. Whatever value Apple may add, most people aren't going to spend $1500 for a computer with equivalent specs to one they can get for just over half that from elsewhere.

By the way, where'd they get all that money? Have they been holding out on their shareholders or did they just do a big stock sale?

Yeah, it's a tiny 10% niche of the domestic computer market. That's a niche you can make some money with. And yes they have been holding out on their shareholders. Time for a dividend or stock buy back.

OK, I'll bite. I need a new computer in the next 6 months. I've been thinking Apple for years, but my wife doesn't want to have to go through a major learning/break-fixing/getting acquainted phase. We mostly surf, listen to music, watch video, check email, and edit photos, but we do need to be able to open Microsoft things like .xls, .doc. and .ppt for work. We do our taxes and our finances, etc.

Convince me I should spend the extra money to go Apple and that it won't be a big headache up front.

PCad, I've done the same thing, even waiting for that key moment when the customer is just about to get pissed and needs genuine help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwrides

Convince me I should spend the extra money to go Apple and that it won't be a big headache up front.

I can't convince you... because I've never owned a Windows computer. People have asked me how I deal with typical computer problems and I just give a blank stare because I really don't know what they're talking about. One guy recently asked if my 18-month-old MB Pro still runs fine, and I replied, "...What do you mean? It runs like it did the day I got it..."

What I can say is that my friends at work who have recently switched to Mac aren't ever going back. One still talks about how great his first weekend went -- he set aside two days to transfer everything over and get it set up the way he wanted, and was done in an hour. The other once confessed that his MB Pro started to seem "boring", but that's because he wasn't having to constantly maintain the system with virus scans and whatnot.

Most people would say right away to get Office for your new Mac, but I'll say to use the iWork software first to see if it'll open everything you need. I have Office, but haven't used it since.. well, I honestly can't remember when I last used it. The Pages app is part word processor and mostly a page layout editor; TextEdit is included for free on a Mac, and is more powerful than people tend to assume. Keynote opens Powerpoint files, but not always 100% -- but it saves to .ppt, too. Numbers might be a worthwhile replacement for Excel. On top of that, the way they all tie in with iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie is just about amazing.

I think the mac is a nice computer...but Apple as a whole makes my angry...with there "secret" software...and there updates that make there stuff not work with anyone else s stuff. Like the damn Iphone...doesn't work properly with any of the blue tooth car kits I put in...including the parrot which works with just about anything. The Ipod doesn't work in reverse...I cant take my music from my Ipod and put it onto my computer if I get a new computer... I paid for this music and I cant do what I want with it... If I had bought a CD instead I could copy it as many times as I want...I don't see what there point is. With a zune player I can bluetooth songs back and forth from players and the laptop....much easier and it works with everything.
Apple doesn't play nice with others.

Now apple lovers are going to say that the Ipod can do what I want if I get and install another program...
I dont want to.
You can run a windows shell to play pc games...
may as well buy a pc if I'm gonna run windows anyway
mac doesn't get viruses
only because they are not leading the industry in sales
if there were more macs than pc's there would be mac viruses.
mac starts up quicker
my pc is ready to go in 16 seconds...count them...16
there's an argument for every argument...
fact is...its preference.
and a mac doesn't do everything better...get over it.
I think its a fine machine...
its just not "better"
it depends on what you want.

besides people at best buy, walmart...kmart get paid absolute CRAP... how much enthusiasm would you have at that salary?